❝ You who have taken on his name, have managed... nothing. ❞

character name
name	near (nate river)
age	varies (18-27)
origin	wammy's house
occupation	the next L

 about  Highest ranked of the second generation successors, and eventually the one to take on the title of 𝔏. A young man with an incredible intellect (tempered only by the inability to act). The one to initially close the Kira case, and in the years following, the copycats who picked up the notebook...

 biography  An orphan, Near was born in England to the River family. Shortly after this, all the members aside from him were extinguished in a family annihilation which seemingly lacked any motive. Near initially spent time in different orphanages- moving a few times. Unexpectedly, his family's case was reexamined by the detective 'Deneuve', in collaboration with Interpol as connections to a murder of a foreign officer came to light. After the case was officially closed, he was plucked up and taken to Wammy's house in Winchester, England for his rumored intellect. His first year or two at Wammy's was characterized by an unexpected warmth he hadn't experienced in his life prior to his arrival. There was a period in which the previously nonverbal child had started occasionally speaking and even smiling, always following after the boys who would become the second generation of successors alongside him. After the suicide of the first successor, 'A', he withdrew and became as silent and stoic as he'd been when he'd arrived, his social skills deteriorating even further. The remainder of his time at Wammy's was spent in relative self-isolation as his only friends pulled away after the next successor candidates were announced. Many of the other children also envied him- he made himself very easy to hate through his academic success alone.When it was announced to Near and Mello that 𝔏 had died, he had no issue with the idea of working together- after all, he's always been painfully clinical regarding his own shortcomings, and never bore any animosity towards Mello. Perhaps in a misguided attempt to reassure Mello, or even himself, he said something that would end up haunting him later on in life. if you can't beat the game, if you can't solve the puzzle, you're nothing but a loser. He doesn't think what he said was wrong, per se- but it was said in the frame of mind he had gained at Wammy's house. If it had been him who failed, he'd be just that- a failure, Like A and B had been before them. It was not that he didn't idolize 𝔏. Quite the opposite, really. But it was the unkind reality of the system in which he and the other successors grew up in. Coldness and detachment were necessary forms of armor to survive those halls. Naturally to someone like Mello it landed pretty horribly- and as Near himself grew older, he understood why. The value of a life is not black and white, after all. When Matt and Mello would go on to 'fail', he was left to contend with that.The Kira case took the remaining relations he had away from him. The deaths of Matt and Mello along with a massive chunk of his investigative team were things that took years for him to process and understand. What others called remarkable composure in the face of horror and loss was not much more than maladaptive coping by someone barely 18 years old. By the events of the A-Kira case, the 27 year old Near has become jaded and weary of the title which will eventually be his executioner. He is beginning to reflect on his life as a whole to better process what he's been through. Going through the case file bearing his name kept back at the orphanage has been relatively enlightening, but is dredging up things his psyche purposely suppressed.

The contents of Near's case file from Wammy's house contain a variety of sources: police records from the case which orphaned him, investigative notes from the Kato death inquest, and notes written by Roger Ruvie over the years he spent in the orphanage.